Biological Sciences Staff information

Margaret Romine

Biography

Dr. Romine is a Scientist in the Microbiology Group of the Biological Sciences Division at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Romine's research interests are on the application and integration of experimental and computational approaches to identify and characterize bacteria in pure and mixed cultures, either contrived in the laboratory or extracted directly from the environment. She currently is Co-PI on multi-institution DOE GTL: Genomes to Life grant focused on characterizing microbial interactions between autotrophic and heterotrophic microbes from Yellowstone National Park and meromictic lakes in Washington State. Her primary roles on this project involve maintaining/updating the genome annotation, developing targeted gene knock-out mutants to probe and validate gene functions, utilizing comparative genomics to predict new gene functions and map them to cellular subsystems, and to integrate this information with results from various experimental data types (e.g., microarrays and global proteomics) to develop systems level descriptions of MR-1 metabolism. She also is leading an effort within this project that is focused on interrogating methods of gene transfer in these communities and identifying the pool of functions that are mobilized.

Research Interests

Application and integration of experimental and computational approaches to identify and characterize bacteria in pure and mixed cultures

She currently is Co-PI on multi-institution DOE GTL: Genomes to Life grant focused on characterizing microbial interactions between autotrophic and heterotrophic microbes from Yellowstone National Park.

Harris HW, MY El-Naggar, O Bretschger, MJ Ward, MF Romine, A Obraztsova, and KH Nealson. 2010. "Electrokinesis is a microbial behavior that requires extracellular electron transport." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107(1):326-331. doi:10.1073/pnas.0907468107